


a figment of his imagination

by verybadhedgehog



Series: a figment of his imagination [1]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - After College/University, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - High School, Crack, M/M, Meta, Nerdiness, Worldbuilding, large goth men, meta kylux, only the original trilogy exists in this universe, thin ginger men, young urban professionals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-07
Updated: 2016-09-24
Packaged: 2018-08-12 01:36:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7915375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verybadhedgehog/pseuds/verybadhedgehog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you’ve done something embarrassing, it’s often best to face up to it gradually. Bit by bit. That was the approach Armitage Hux took. Although to be quite accurate, it was not a deliberate approach, more a case of how things eventually panned out.</p><p>This is a story told in fragments, long and short, of how a ridiculous, self-important, stand-offish little nerd finds his awful trashy goth prince.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> There is a typically British level of alcohol consumption in this fic.
> 
> Written because of this from a writing prompts account on tumblr:  
> "You’re the greatest kid general anyone has ever known to grace the field of pretend war."  
> to which tumblr user [reserve](http://reserve.tumblr.com) added "AU where the entire First Order is teenage Armitage Hux’s elaborate fantasy."  
> which immediately got me thinking "He creates a dark professional nemesis for himself who is basically, like, this totally ripped, hot version of Darth Vader with like, the WORST sexy goth hair and they argue all the time and HE HATES HIM…  
> …and a few years later, Armitage finds his old embarrassing teenage Moleskines and is fully 'HOW THE HELL did I not realise how gay I was. Spoiler, clueless sixteen year old nerd me, you are super super gay' "
> 
> And here we are. Many thanks to reserve for encouraging and discussing this.
> 
> No smut in the first chapter. Smut in the second chapter.
> 
> Huge apologies to the creative teams behind the sequel trilogy ( _particularly_ costume designer Michael Kaplan who created Kylo's gorgeous look) for any inference that their actually rather splendid work could have been done by a teenager with a pencil, an ink pen, two stolen exercise books and a dash of latent sexuality. Although many great creatives do start precisely there.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A priggish nerd goes to school, then college, then goes home after graduation.

_A battalion of stormtroopers marched in perfect formation. Under the command of their superior, who was distinguished from the others not only by a flowing cape but by gleaming chrome armour, they halted and presented arms._

_Above them, his greatcoat flapping in the harsh, biting wind, General Hux observed and approved. Excellence across the ranks. The First Order training methods had surpassed those of the Empire, and the Galaxy would be reclaimed._

 

_(October 2002)_

This was splendid.

Armitage Hux wrote down “advanced training methods ensure excellence across the ranks” in his rough notebook, ready to copy it up in neat, into his main notebook under the heading “First Order Stormtroopers”.

He jotted down another note. “What to call chrome armour stormtrooper commander?” 

A tap-tap on the door jolted him from his musings. Not three seconds later the door opened with the rudeness of which only a parent can be culpable. 

“Oh,” she said, with subtle but evident disapproval. “Are you _still_ doing your homework?”

“No. I’ve finished my homework. I’m just reading.”

“No need to take an attitude, I was only asking. You should be going to bed if you want to be fit for school in the morning.”   

Hux sighed. “Yes.”

Double maths in the morning, which was not bad, really.

Chemistry in the afternoon. If he had to pair up with the awful new kid again he’d seriously consider making a formal complaint.

 

***

 

_Each atmospheric assault lander carried two squads of ten stormtroopers, with a crew of one pilot and one gunner. Each squad had nine solders with standard training and equipment and one specialist, for example a heavy gunner, a flame trooper or riot control trooper._

 

Everyone loves a flamethrower.

 

***

 

_(September 2004)_

Sixth Form! Sixth Form! That new kingdom. No longer a mere schoolboy, but an A-level student, a sixth former entitled to wear a shirt and sweater of the colour of his choice under the school blazer. Today he would be wearing a battleship grey shirt. Understated. His mother had picked out a sea green V neck sweater from House of Fraser as an early birthday present – “brings out your eyes, Armitage, you’ll look super,” and when the weather got colder it would have its first outing.

The joy with which Armitage Hux approached the new school year was founded in no small part on the fact that he would finally be rid of the near constant presence of that sack of shit Richardson who had made every English lesson a torture and who he had carried, thanklessly, through every Chemistry practical.

Ben Richardson had made it apparent, by means of various sulky mutterings, that he would be taking arts subjects at A level, because he was “probably gonna do Law, I suppose”.

Hux had a reasonably good time in his Physics lesson, taking notes on measurement, estimation and error calculation.

By the time he’d walked to his Maths class, some of the best seats were already gone. He settled in half way to the back and then noticed, sitting next to the window, staring out, face shielded by his mess of hair but no doubt sullen; that great heap of misery itself. Ben bloody Richardson. What the hell was he doing here? Why was he taking maths? What emissary of Satan had permitted this?

Hux seethed. He glowered. The offending item remained in his field of vision and he was forced to glance resentfully at it, at _him_ , between taking down notes and solving practice problems.

 

***

 

_(February 2005)_

Mr McKay the History teacher suggested he might like to join the sixth form debating society. “It’ll help with Oxford or Cambridge applications,” he said, brightly.

Hux was the seconder for the motion ‘This House believes that Democracy is Over-Rated” and gave a really rather splendid speech that both delighted and astonished. 

Ben had opposed the motion, and of course Ben’s side had won, because people knew how they were supposed to vote – which was actually part of the problem with democracy, if only anyone had been listening. And, to be fair, because Ben had given a good speech, actually, and maybe people were surprised to hear him not mumbling for once.

He cornered Hux afterwards and things got a bit weird.

“You’re not for real,” Ben said, accusingly. “You’re not for real, any more than I am. Less, actually.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re a bullshitter. If you were for real you’d be a fucking arsehole. But you’re just a shitty poser.”

“A _poser_? Coming from _you_? In your stupid coat and stupid boots? This is unreal. I’m not listening to this.”

“Yeah, I’m _posing_ like this in these frankly _fucking excellent_ boots because I actually like them and this actually is how I want to be. You’re all fake. So fake you won’t even admit it.”

“I don’t care what you think,” Hux sniffed. But he did. Why the hell did he care what the school’s tame goth thought about anything? He didn’t like being criticised by anybody, but he got the distinct sense that he was _supposed_ to be taking this personally.  

Couldn’t he have said “I thought your speech was quite good”? Or something nice? Or something that made any sense at all? 

 

***

 

_(October 2006)_

Armitage Hux went to college with a few simple goals.

Firstly, to avoid people making fun of his name too much. He had imagined that he would be among serious adults now and that he would be safe from anyone of the rugby persuasion putting him in a headlock and calling him “Armitage Shanks.” Now he was actually here, among, once again, his peers, he realised the extreme naivety of such a position. He could at least, make it through the first few weeks un-Shanksed.

Hopefully, he’d have it more or less covered with “just call me Hux.” And he would avoid rugby and rowing types. He could indulge in a little light self-deprecation, and allow a few close friends to call him “Arms,” possibly. Possibly.

Which brought him to his second goal: to make some friends. Not too many, but a few. A few other nerds who weren’t too nerdy, but not too try-hard and cool either, obviously, to have a few beers with. Oh, fuck it, who was he trying to kid.

Thirdly, and this probably should have been firstly, but it did go without saying, to do well on his course. 

 

***

 

Freshers Week went pretty much as expected. There were far too many people to get to know, and far too many names to remember. He had heard one or two people refer to “Hux, you know, that skinny ginger bloke in A block,” so he wasn’t entirely anonymous. The other people on his third floor landing were alright. The hand lettered names above their doors proclaimed them to be:

J.S Lim. Jonathan: another engineer, very short and rather quiet, but he seemed genuinely nice. World could probably do with a few more Jonathan Lims. Or would it be Jonathans Lim?

S.A. Luscombe. Sarah: hearty girl doing Economics who was definitely, definitely going to be a boatie, he could just tell. She had already received the nickname Big Sarah, and that was going to be her, set and sorted for the rest of time. 

P.M. Renwick. Paul. A physicist, who he’d already had a good natured argument with about the virtues of physics versus engineering and he hadn’t sulked much when Paul had called him “just a builder”. Not much.

 

***

 

Hux wandered, with his neighbour Paul and another physicist, around the Freshers Fair. They ignored the circus skills society, the Onesie Club, the Seekers of the True Grilled Cheese. He was fairly sure the Heraldry Society must be a cover for something; at least that’s what he read from the very sleek young chaps manning the stall and the very friendly, very rotund man in a gingham shirt and bow tie who seemed to be in charge. A girl with a college scarf was expressing interest, and getting a much more restrained version of the spiel than that which he’d just had. Well, he might follow them up if he had the time. 

He lingered by the SciFi and Fantasy Society recruiting table, and put his name down for the mailing list.

He signed up for the Engineering Society, obviously.

Paul and his friend joined the Rock Society.

 

***

 

The Freshers Week college “bop” was predictably underwhelming.

 

***

 

Later that week, Hux went to a meeting of the SciFi and Fantasy society in the Corpus Christi college bar, hung about for a bit and left, three pints to the good but otherwise unimpressed. Or at least, secure in the knowledge that these weren’t his sort of people. A little hamster of a girl volubly discoursing about the works of Neal Stephenson to another young woman with long curtains of hair and hunted eyes, being interrupted by a guy in an Aran sweater who was just a bit too loud: not his sort of people.  Not to mention the neckbeards in the corner. _Not my sort of people_ , he thought. _Not good enough for me_ , he meant. 

There was what seemed to be an interesting conversation taking place on a table of six people. He went over. It was about comic books. He didn’t really do comic books. And besides, on closer inspection, it was the nearest thing to the cool kids table. Hux didn’t do the cool kids table either.

So he cut his losses and left. As he turned onto Silver Street, someone called his name. He turned, surprised. It was a girl from his own college who he’d seen before but couldn’t place a name to.

“You were just at the geek soc meet, weren’t you?”

“Yep, what of it?”

“Whoah, easy there, Mr Defensive,” she said. Hux bristled slightly. “So was I. What did you reckon?”

“Erm, it was alright.”

“Just alright. Yeah. That’s what I reckon, too. I might go again, but I dunno.”

“I don’t want to be judgemental, but…”

“You do,” she said, wryly.

“Yeah. Let’s just say I probably won’t make it a priority.”

“I might go again, might not. Probably try to avoid getting talked over by twats.”

“I mean, I can read a book any time I like, you know”

“I might go to one or two of the author talks. If they get anyone good.”

“You going back to West Road?”

“Yeah.” 

Now would be the time to ask her name. “Sorry, I know I should remember your name, we probably met already.”

“Lise. Lisa with an E. Lise Appleton. I live in K block.”

The conversation continued as they cut across to Queen’s Road. Hux had a sudden awful thought that this Lise might be trying to pull him. Luckily, this didn’t turn out to be the case. Once they reached K block, she simply waved him off with a cheery “see you, Hux!”

Hux swiped his entry card, negotiated the wide, echoey brick corridor and staircase, reached his room and put himself to bed.

 

***

 

_(November 2006)_

Hux did actually bother to go to one of the SciFi and Fantasy Soc events – a talk by one of his favourite authors. He sat near the back. The talk was pretty interesting, and it was nice to hear someone really positively sticking up for space opera.

There was a Q&A session, dominated initially by try-hards trying to prove that they knew the most about the smallest trivia. Then came a question from a chap in a King’s college sweater. “How do you go about your world building? Do you keep a lot of documents, notebooks, like some people have loads of that sort of stuff, maps and that?”

The author perked up. “Oh, what a great question. Yes, I do keep a lot of notebooks. I like to be able to really immerse myself in the world I’m creating, because I figure if I’m not in it, how can I expect you all to be in it?” He went on to talk enthusiastically about all the things he put in his notebooks – the political systems, the clothes, the military hierarchy.

Well. That brought it all back with a blush. Hux didn’t know if he was ashamed or proud or both, thinking of all the notebooks he’d filled as a teenager with his own space opera world building. He’d worked so hard on all of it. Some of it was actually pretty good work and if he could write, he’d maybe have been able to turn it into something good. But it was embarrassing. Even here, in a room full of geeks, the thought of his old notebooks with “The First Order” on the cover and, so help him, the First Order logo he’d designed (it was simple and effective and he’d only needed a compass and a ruler and a pen to draw it), was mortifying. Or fortifying. One of the two.

He thought of the character page he’d written for himself. _General Hux (34, scary)_. Mortifying. Definitely mortifying. Armitage Hux (14, nerd) had been such a pillock.

 

***

_(January 2007)_

Jon had been to Estonia. Hux wasn’t 100% sure he could point to Estonia on a map. He reckoned Jon’s parents must be loaded to afford all this travel, and found himself sensing an old familiar chip on his shoulder once again.

Someone further along the balcony would not stop playing Monster by the Automatic over and over again. Extreme measures may have to be taken. 

Big Sarah had got a boyfriend. Good for her. Good. 

What’s that coming over the hill, indeed.

 

***

_(February 2007)_

The engineering society annual dinner ended in what the university idiom termed “utter carnage”. Hux did something with a girl from Downing. It was alright in a sort of a vague way. Girls weren’t really his thing, he had to admit.

 

***

 

_(May 2007)_

Hux revised for his first year exams. During a break, he found himself musing on what university-level education in the First Order would have been like. They wouldn’t have had some planet-side equivalent of Royal Military College Sandhurst. It would have had to have been on board a starship. They’d have all been very well trained though. And there’d have been a specific engineering corps, to work alongside external contractors and build the starships and bases and super weapons. He stopped himself. This was escapism, wasn’t it? Retreating into the old fantasy world he was supposed to have left behind at school. He should really have left it behind when he started his GCSEs to be quite honest.

Well. Anyway. Back to the fluid mechanics.

 

*** 

 

_(July 2008)_

During his industrial placement in the summer between his second and third years, three important things happened. 

 

1\. He kissed another man for the first time. 

2\. He went to bed with another man for the first time.

3\. This man, a pleasant young Dane, convinced him that he could wear nice clothes he’d always liked, that they weren’t “not for the likes of him” and so he could venture out of the rather conservative pseudo-uniform he hid behind

 

He could have broken his duck re 1 and 2 (and possibly even 3) much much earlier if he’d been remotely out at college. He hadn’t been part of the university gay scene for much the same reason as he wasn’t part of many scenes – he found them beneath him. If he were in charge of things they might be better. Or at least, if other people weren’t such idiots.

 

***

_(January 2009)_

In his third year, he had a tentative relationship with a young man in another college. It was OK. Up to a point. But it did not last.

 

***

_(February 2009)_

So he’d definitely broken up with Andrew. There wasn’t much point in talking to anyone about it, largely because nobody knew they’d been together.

He wandered down to the college bar, just to see if anyone was there and on the off-chance of a game of pool. That might distract him.

He could go over to the library and work on his inelastic buckling assignment, but he figured he wasn’t much up to concentrating. His supervision wasn’t for another three days. He could work on it tomorrow. 

There was hardly anyone around. 9pm on a Tuesday, the place was dead. 

Ravi Fernando offered him a game of pool, and Hux said maybe, meaning no. He was already far too demoralised to feel like putting himself on the wrong end of the Fernando pool game.

He stayed and moped halfheartedly for a few minutes. The heavy door separating the bar from the undercroft swung open, and Lise Appleton stepped in, with the air of someone who was looking for someone.

“Seen Little Ed? Oh, hey, Huxy. What’s up with you?”

For some reason, he decided to tell her. They weren’t _proper_ friends, he thought, so it didn’t matter.

“I just broke up with my boyfriend. Feeling a bit shit.”

“Oh, man. I’m sorry. That’s gonna hurt.”

“Yep.”

That was good. She hadn’t said, “oh my god, I didn’t know you were gay,” or, “oh my god, I didn’t know you were going out with anyone.”

“Look, why don’t you come up to mine and have a few rum and cokes and talk about it. That’s what people do, isn’t it?”

“Weren’t you looking for Ed? And anyway I’ve got lectures in the morning.”

“Oh fuck Ed, it isn’t important. You’ve shown up to lectures hung over before, right?”

“I suppose. Yeah, alright. Let’s act out sad gay and supportive female friend.”

“Do you want any fucking rum or not, Arms?” 

So they made their way through the cold outer court and climbed the staircase to Lise’s second floor room. To talk about it, whatever good that was going to do.

Hux left his bag by the door and draped his coat over it. Lise fetched a bottle of rum from a side table. “No relation, by the way,” she said, waving the bottle at him. Appleton Jamaica rum. Very funny, very droll.

They sat opposite each other in some rather institutional armchairs, a pair of which was standard in all college rooms. The rum and cokes were strong. “Well done past me for filling the ice cube tray,” Lise said.

“I suppose it just didn’t work out,” Hux said, sipping his drink but avoiding eye contact with Lise.

“Doesn’t, sometimes.”

“I don’t know if we had anything in common. I just, I think I might be shit at this.”

Lise flipped her fringe right over, exposing a close cropped undercut. She crinkled her brow in thought. “You’re a late starter, I suppose. I guess, I mean am I way off the mark?”

“No. Andrew was my second boyfriend. First actual ‘we are in a relationship’ boyfriend and I don’t know what I was expecting or how to… I am probably shit at this.”

“The first one was the one who got you wearing nicer shirts?”

“Yes, yes, but that’s… doesn’t matter.”

“Look, alright, this is only your second boyfriend and it’s a bit soon to be saying you’re shit at relationships. You said you didn’t have much in common…”

“Lis’, he was _so boring_.”

“Arms, you’re an engineer for fuck’s sake. Boring is as boring does.”

“Fuck off, no! Not having that. I mean, it was all OK, it was _OK_ , it was nice, but he was just boring. I was sat holding hands with just this… pretty much random person.”

Lise gave him a meaningful look. “Holding hands?”

Hux gave a brief wry smile and blushed slightly. “The sex was pretty good. Actually. That part was fine.”

“Why don’t you go to more queer events, you might meet someone there.”

“Oh god no.”

“Why?” She smiled wryly. “Not your sort of people?”

“Yes, honestly. I mean, my god, who’s college LGBT officer this year? Is it Martin?”

“It’s Martin.”

“Fuck. What the hell have I got in common with Martin or anyone he knows? Now, Holly was alright, I quite liked her.”

“You never went to anything she organised or signed up to the email.”

“How do you know? That’s data protection!”  Hux was suddenly sharply jealous of the comfortable relationship Lise and Holly had evidently had. Sitting side by side and doing admin together.

Hux and Lise gossiped about their student colleagues. Many were judged and found wanting. 

Conversation turned to other ways in which people were sub par.

The main problem was that too many people simply didn’t know what they were doing. There were too many fuckwits. Hux felt that if society was an actual meritocracy, the likes of him would be able to have their natural influence. And if people weren’t equipped to make the correct decisions, perhaps they shouldn’t be making decisions.

“You know you do get a bit fascist when you’ve had a drink.”

“No, no, it’s about doing things properly. Make sure there’s a system, make sure everyone knows what to do.”

“Who’d be in charge, you?”

“I don’t know, but honestly, if people just let me decide things it would be a lot better.”

“Well. Maybe. There’s far too many fuckwits. I’m with you on that. I mean fuck’s sake, nobody here is meant to be a fuckwit, but you still come across them.”

Hux picked up a flyer from Lise’s coffee table.

___

_Calling Inventors Of Imaginary Worlds_

_Did you have an imaginary make-believe world as a child or adolescent?_

_Dr Maria Phipps and Mr Bernard Lefebvre of the Cambridge University Department of Psychology would like to speak to you_

_We are researching worldplay as an activity in middle childhood through adolescence._

_Invented worlds, invented languages (conlangs), make-believe countries, utopias, dystopias, we welcome all._

_Contact Dr Phipps (msp243@[notarealemail]cam.ac.uk) or Mr Lefebvre (bml76@[notareaemail]cam.ac.uk)_

_____

Then came the small print about research ethics et cetera. Et. Cetera.

“What’s this? Looking for kids with too much imagination?”

“It’s what it says it is. A research project. I’m thinking of participating, actually.”

Shit. “Oh, sorry. Shit, sorry, Lis’”

“No, it’s alright. I’m almost pissed enough to tell you about it. And it’ll take your mind off whatsisname.”

“Alright then.”

“OK, right, I had,” and she took a sip of drink and shuffled in her chair, “an imaginary country when I was about ten or eleven, and then a couple of years later, I started making up a language for it.”

“Oh, actually that’s quite interesting.”

“It was round about when we started learning German in school – with German having more grammar to learn than French does, I got quite interested in grammar, and I had a little notebook where I wrote down all kinds of ideas.”

“Was your language related to any language you know or…”

“No, I made all the vocabulary up from scratch. With no regard to how easy it was to pronounce!”

“Was it full of Xs and Qs and apostrophes?”

“Not as bad as that. Some difficult consonant clusters, though.” 

Hux suddenly found his mouth was two steps ahead of him. “Look, we’re nerds, right. And you had your made up language, and you’re considering being a participant in this research project”

“Mm.”

“Well. _I’m_ not going to. I mean, fuck _that_ , but I fit the specification.”

Lise’s eyes and smile both widened. 

Hux kept going. He said it. “Well, I had this elaborate fantasy world when I was a kid. I mean not a kid, that’s the worst. And not a world, more an organisation.” 

Fuck this rum.

“Go on then,” Lise said, near the edge of her chair.

“I must’ve been…  thirteen or fourteen. And it was… fuck, give us another drink”

The pause for Lise to mix the drinks gave him time to collect his thoughts and bolster his bravado. “It was in space. A space opera type setting. No, let’s be honest, I’m not going to lie and say I made something up from whole cloth like proper geeks do, like you did, like actual creative people do. It was set in the Star Wars universe. Alright? It was Star Wars.”

“Oh, a ‘fan work’. Yeah that’s OK. Having a framework and working to those constraints. I’ve been to a lecture on fan works and creativity and…”

“Yeah it wasn’t fan fiction, OK? It wasn’t that. There would have been stories, but I never wrote them.”

“It’s alright, Arms. Tell me about it. I like that sort of thing.” 

“It was a continuation of the Empire, but made a little more modern. Nicer uniforms, a better organised military.”

“So as if the Empire hadn’t been defeated?”

“No, they had been defeated, everything in Return of the Jedi still happens, so the Emperor and Darth Vader are dead. But a few Imperial officers go off and regroup and find allies and come back under a new banner. With new Star Destroyers and a bigger better Death Star.”

“Did you have Stormtroopers?”

“Yep, thousands of them!” Hux gestured expansively. “And much better organised and trained.”

“So they could hit a cow’s arse with a banjo?”

“Huh?”

“It’s a figure of speech. They could hit a barn door from five paces. Not like the stormtroopers in the films.”

“Oh right, yeah. I remember I put a lot of thought into how the training might be different – they’d have technology, so it’d all be done with simulations and virtual reality. They weren’t cannon fodder, they were well trained soldiers. Totally loyal.”

“Oh, how convenient. People to listen to you when you tell them what to do. Armitage Hux Rules The World.”

“Well, yes, there was that. I was fourteen though.”

“They do say boys mature later.”

“Fuck off!”

“What did you say just a few minutes ago? _Kids with too much imagination?_ ”

“Well, yeah. Don’t always believe everything I say.” He remembered being called a fake and a bullshitter once, by a school rival. The school rival. It had stung at the time and it stung more bitterly now because of course it was true. Well. Anyway. Everyone’s a bullshitter. But never mind. “Do you want to hear about my bigger better Death Star?”

“Course I do.”

“OK, well, it was a whole planet, hollowed out, and it fired a beam of energy across space, so it could destroy planets at a distance. I drew diagrams and everything.”

“You want to be careful with these weapons of mass destruction. Might get the Americans invading you.”

“No Americans. It’s in space. The Galactic Republic would be waiting for the next Galactic United Nations resolution. They wouldn’t do anything.”

“Best not make any more real world analogies, we’ll fall out.”

“No, OK, but it was amazing. A whole planet. A small one, but a whole one.”  

“So this is why you’re doing engineering, cos you want a planet sized death beam weapon so you can rule the galaxy?”

“Not exactly, but it’d be an incredible project to work on.”

Lise laughed.

 

***

 

_(October 2009 - May 2010)_

The fourth year was pretty much constant project work, report writing and coursework, and somewhere in the middle of all that, Hux landed a graduate traineeship at a very well renowned firm. He was, deservedly, very pleased with himself.  

 

***

 

_(June 2010)_

Hux went home after graduation. He had the whole summer to himself before his job started in early September. No industrial placements, no language courses. Coming back home, he felt somewhat disjointed. It wasn’t quite the home he’d left. He had to admit that he had changed. Well, it was four years. And university was supposed to change and develop you. It just seemed pedestrian and almost crass to admit that it actually had. His matriculation photo was hanging in the upstairs landing. There they all were, in alphabetical order. Eighteen and nineteen and fresh faced, nervous and naive. He picked himself out easily: orange hair, much taller than Huang to his right or Inglis to his left. Young and daft. Look at the state of him. Like a boiled prawn.

His mum had let him know there were some old books and papers of his from school, in the bottom drawer in his old room. Did he want to keep any of them? Well, class homework books and papers could go. There were some folders of artwork, sketches mostly. Starships and the like. The sort of things nerdy kids draw. And there, in one of the artwork folders, he found three notebooks with the First Order logo.

He opened one.

He half smiled at first, at the amount of work he’d put into all of this. Three sides on the aims and principles of the First Order – half-baked law and order propaganda that you could probably win a general election on if you made sure point 2 was “cut taxes”. It was quite embarrassingly fascistic. Maybe this _is_ what I’m like, he thought, with mild concern. Maybe Lise was right. _In vino veritas_.

He tried to think about it more dispassionately. Better to say that he was, at heart, the sort of person who tended towards authoritarian views in times of stress. And adolescence was most definitely a time of stress. He had, on top of being a rake thin ginger kid, been a weird and rather asocial kid. He’d loved Star Wars and loved the Death Star and Darth Vader; and he wanted to have something that allowed him to feel in control. In command. It didn’t mean he was about to invade Europe or start burning books. 

Why was he feeling anxious about this old thing? Calm. He could be calm.

He turned the page. A double page spread with a drawing of a Star Destroyer. The _Resurgent_ class, it was designated – he must have been inspired at the time by naming and classification of aircraft carriers or nuclear submarines, he supposed. And this one was called the _Finalizer!_ What an awful, yet brilliant name. The _Resurgent_ -class Star Destroyer _Finalizer_. It was nearly 3km long! He thought for a couple of seconds. Ten times longer than a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier. And it was home to thousands of personnel. 19,000 officers and 50,000 enlisted, and 8,000 Stormtroopers. Blimey.

He perused the diagram some more. That’s right, he remembered, he’d designed the whole front section as a flight deck, with TIE fighters and troop landers taking off from the sides. He’d forgotten he’d done all this detail. It really was rather impressive. He reckoned they would have had some excellent steels and exotic alloys in Star Wars.

He wondered what they did for fresh water, all these nearly eighty thousand people. And the atmospheric situation must have been something. Imagine the HVAC plans. Imagine the control systems for the oxygen plant. Imagine the P&IDs.

He flicked a few pages on, expecting to find the character sheets. Instead, he found a condensed run-down of a few characters, including “General Hux” (yikes) and a note to “see book 2 for details.” So the character sheets were in book 2, were they?

He reached for book 2.

There he was. In charge of a great army. In command of the Finalizer. In command of Starkiller Base – of course Starkiller Base! The base would be back in book 1. He’d have to look at that in a minute.  What else had he put… a proud Imperial, a ruthless and highly talented young officer. An engineering prodigy and military genius. Oh lord. It was getting a little bit silly.

There was a sketch. Just a basic sketch of a man with a military greatcoat over a black uniform and boots. The uniform was similar to the Imperial uniforms in Star Wars, which were, it was uncomfortable to note, themselves similar to certain Second World War uniforms. The uniform Hux had designed was sleek and single breasted, and he noted, with a giggle and a hand over his mouth, that he’d labelled it as “charcoal silk grosgrain General’s dress uniform.” Only the finest things for the General, he supposed. And obviously _not in the least_ queer. Lordy. How had he not twigged? Granted, he’d only been thirteen or fourteen when he started coming up with this, but he was definitely still adding to it through his GCSE years, by which time he should have grown a clue.

That Danish boy had been pushing at an open door with his sartorial encouragements.

He flicked a couple of pages and it got worse. He’d remembered the Vader-esque enforcer he’d created. Kylo Ren, of the Knights of Ren. He remembered he’d made him look like a medieval knight all in black and given him a fiery red lightsaber and big goth boots with straps and buckles.

He had _not_ remembered that his Darth Vader substitute was supposed to be so muscular and fit. He was wearing something with skin tight sleeves, and teenage Hux had drawn, clearly and intentionally, big shoulders and big well defined arms. It was indisputably homoerotic. This knight was clearly meant to be hot. Broad shouldered, obviously fit as fuck. How had Hux not realised? How had it taken, what, _four more years_ for him to even _think_ “actually, you know what, I’m gay.”

He tried to remember drawing the sketches and – had there been anything sexual to it at the time? He really couldn’t remember it that way.

The character sheet for Kylo Ren described him as physically imposing, a fearsome warrior, and strong in the Force. Burning with anger, it said, too. Unstable. Argumentative.

Another note, in a separate box, read “Kylo Ren and General Hux disagree about strategy, and the values of technology vs the Force. They argue all the time and Hux hates him.”

He flipped forward a page. There were more notes about Kylo Ren, and a couple of rough sketches. One in particular sent Hux’s heart into his throat. It was titled “Kylo unmasked” – it showed a youngish man with a long face, a large long nose, and shoulder length wavy black hair.

“Fuck. Oh shit. _Oh my fucking god_ that’s Ben Richardson, that’s him, it _is_ him.” The annoying goth kid who sat in the corner in class. He used to glower at Hux from under this curtain of stupid hair, and he used to wear this tatty big black scarf and big goth boots with straps and buckles. Oh. Ohh. So that’s where the boots came from. And the ragged edge to Kylo Ren’s cowl. Some of the character notes on Kylo Ren, too, were sort of maybe a little bit like Ben.

  _I literally drew Ben Richardson and his stupid hair and his big beaky nose, looking all mean and moody and… what the fuck did I think I was doing?_

He must have, in his stupid, clueless, repressed, backwards, weirdo bloody way, been in love with Ben. They’d done a debating team thing in sixth form and it had been a bit weird. And this was obviously now part of the reason. It had been weird In That Way.

He felt odd.

What if they’d kissed? They’d _never_ have kissed. It wasn’t possible.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess what happens in the second chapter. I mean go on and _guess_ what sort of corporate goth might suddenly pop up in his life.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hux, now a young professional, meets an interesting man.
> 
> scenes of a sexual nature, for those who were either looking forward to them or dreading them.
> 
> tropes of a shipping nature, ditto.

_(December 2011)_

Armitage Hux went home for Christmas. It was fine, really. Everyone was terribly proud of him professionally, nobody really understood how bloody expensive it was to live in the capital these days, and far too many people wanted to know if he'd “met someone yet”. Yet.

 

 

_(October 2012)_

During his graduate training and initial professional development, Hux had managed to get at least a few shags in. Having needs and simultaneously having standards was a challenge, but one that could be worked through.

There was something disappointing about it, though. It wasn’t like he'd set himself a challenge to get a boyfriend before he attained chartered engineer status. But now he hadn’t done it, it did feel like a failure.

His attempts to stalk Ben on Facebook had been limited to wistful sighing over Ben’s profile pictures, as his Facebook was quite comprehensively friends locked. He wasn’t going to ask for a friend request. It would be stupid. Awkward. Not worth the risk.

LinkedIn was worse. He double checked he was in private mode every time.

He found a few hookups on Grindr.  During the summer he had been able to reap some rewards from the temporary influx of quality new dick that the Olympic Games had brought. An LED technician working on the opening ceremony. A very nice Spanish basketball reporter.

From time to time he found someone to chat with, at least, up to a point. He found he actually liked textual chatting. He was surprisingly good at it. Easier than face to face. Less baggage. He didn’t have time for facile exhortations to “be yourself!!” but there was something to be said for leaving aside all the mess and expectation and just talking.

He was currently running an experiment to see what kind of men he’d attract with a profile photo that didn’t show his face. His profile gave reasonable pointers to the sort of person he thought he was. If he ignored all those who immediately asked for a pic and all those who were only 2 hour hookup material, would he meet anyone interesting?

As it turned out, after about a week of poor results, his luck came good and he found himself in conversation with a funny, clearly very intelligent man, who was quite easy to chat to. He was a corporate lawyer, according to his profile and his chat. And he was some sort of romantic poet emo goth type, too, according to his username and profile. Why did Hux keep finding himself pulled towards these types? The spirit of Ben Richardson, or, so bloody help him, the spirit of dark side knight enforcer Kylo Ren, must be haunting him. 

They'd chatted a couple of times, and they were definitely getting on well.

 

FirmFoundations: if you were a wine what would you be?

Byronic_Menace: something full bodied and red. I fancy myself as a Pauillac. Dark. Noble. Complex. Blackcurranty.

Byronic_Menace: or a Cote de Nuits. Rich dark fruit, and the name means like hillsides of the night, how much more goth can you get, lol.

Byronic_Menace: There’s a few Kiwi pinot noirs that fit the bill as well

Byronic_Menace: sorry I’m being boring. you?

FirmFoundations: Chablis

Byronic_Menace: hmm, dry and flinty. You come across warmer than that actually, more like a Viognier

FirmFoundations: how very dare you. I should log off. Viognier. Peachy nonsense.

Byronic_Menace: or maybe it's just me maybe you don’t show your warm side to anyone else

Byronic_Menace: or maybe you are just like a little peach and you don’t know it

Byronic_Menace: tender and juicy, a hint of spice some say delectable

FirmFoundations: your flirting is awful

Byronic_Menace: it is either v good or v bad

FirmFoundations: well, one of the two

Byronic_Menace: we’ll see…

FirmFoundations: so you’ve put “corporate goth” on your profile/

FirmFoundations: Is that just a goth who works in an office? Why put it on your profile?

Byronic_Menace: I thought it was fun and it does describe my look

FirmFoundations What exactly does your look entail?

Byronic_Menace: Business dress but with discreet goth stylings

FirmFoundations: Such as?

Byronic_Menace: are you asking me what I’m wearing ;)

FirmFoundations: I’m asking you what you wear in general. You can answer in the specific if you like.

Byronic_Menace: ok

Byronic_Menace: Little things e.g. I often wear boots with my suits instead of shoes. Chelsea boots, not combats or bikers obv.

Byronic_Menace: I still wear that shit at the weekend tho

FirmFoundations: what kind of suits? 

Byronic_Menace: sharp lines sometimes, and sometimes a looser cut. its just got to look right, difficult to explain in text medium

Byronic_Menace: I don’t want to stand out in the wrong way, just enough.

FirmFoundations: sounds rather nice actually. I like when people have given due consideration to their look.

Byronic_Menace: because I’m tall it can be difficult to find things that fit well and look right

FirmFoundations: that is true

FirmFoundations: do you have some ridiculous goth hairstyle or is that not possible

Byronic_Menace: cheeky bastard. It’s just past collar length so I can wear it loose just about but I don’t like to push things. Much.

Byronic_Menace: usually have it in a tiny bun at the back

FirmFoundations: didn’t think you could get away with loose hair in these fancy pants city law firms

Byronic_Menace: I keep it tidy

FirmFoundations: why not cut it then

Byronic_Menace: evenings and weekends

Byronic_Menace: the hair roams free

Byronic_Menace: my glorious mane

FirmFoundations: you’re ridiculous.

Byronic_Menace: youll like my glorious mane

Byronic_Menace: might let you brush it.

FirmFoundations: fuck that’s a nice idea. By which I mean hot

Byronic_Menace: thats what I ws aiming for

FirmFoundations: your typing is messy. Your briefs must be a mess

Byronic_Menace: ahahahaha

Byronic_Menace: this is the absolute perfect lead-in. I refuse to believe you haven't just done this on purpose

FirmFoundations: what

Byronic_Menace sent a picture!

FirmFoundations: oh. Nice.

FirmFoundations: that is really very nice indeed.

Byronic_Menace: (boxer) briefs in fine condition. ;)

Byronic_Menace: I'm not losing my air of mystery I hope

FirmFoundations: no your air of dark gothic mystery is intact, you kept them on

FirmFoundations: you're just a dark gothic mystery with what is clearly a very nice big cock, and I am not complaining

Byronic_Menace: that's me ;)

FirmFoundations: You’re actually much too cheerful for a goth

Byronic_Menace: we like fun! Just don't tend to like stupid people, insincere people, etc

Byronic_Menace: We are a very misunderstood people. this also applies to IP lawyers and I think it probably applies to civil engineers as well. So.

FirmFoundations: ok ok

Byronic_Menace: do I get a tasteful semi clothed dick pic then

Byronic_Menace: or not semi clothed, choice is up to you

FirmFoundations: maybe

FirmFoundations: we could just swap pics, it could just turn into that, or…

Byronic_Menace: you want to meet up don’t you

FirmFoundations: yes

Byronic_Menace:  civil engineer, large erection, match made in heaven ;)

FirmFoundations: oh ffs! But also lol

Byronic_Menace: I was saving that one up. Thought you’d use it, ended up having to shoehorn it in myself.

Byronic_Menace: as it were.

FirmFoundations: lol. Ok, but do I see your face first? Like properly?

Byronic_Menace: how about I see your face first

FirmFoundations sent a picture!

Byronic_Menace sent a picture!

Byronic_Menace: oh. I think I recognise you

Byronic_Menace: this is a bit weird ok

Byronic_Menace: I think we were at school together

Byronic_Menace: you look better since you ditched the hair gel

FirmFoundations: yes we were at school together. Shit. Is this a problem?

FirmFoundations: it needn’t be

FirmFoundations: or you can just log off and block me

Byronic_Menace: no its ok

Byronic_Menace: just a bit surprised that’s all

Byronic_Menace: like since when did Armitage Hux get so hot?

FirmFoundations: I don’t know. What sort of question is that

Byronic_Menace: you look good I’m saying. You’re very cute actually.

FirmFoundations: you look amazing btw

Byronic_Menace: how long have you been out? 

Byronic_Menace: shit that’s an awful question I just mean I had no idea you were gay none at all

Byronic_Menace: hmm actually I don't know if that's true

FirmFoundations: a lot of people aren’t out at school. You weren’t really tbh

FirmFoundations: funny thing is

FirmFoundations: I did have a weird sort of crush on you back then

Byronic_Menace: did you? I thought you didn’t like me

FirmFoundations: it was a really weird sort of crush. If it even was a crush at the time I don’t know

Byronic_Menace: ???

FirmFoundations: I didn’t realise it was until much later

FirmFoundations: I didn’t come out to myself until I was 19, 20 really

Byronic_Menace: oh ok

FirmFoundations: I was kind of a clueless nerd

Byronic_Menace: yep you were v nerdy v awkward. I mean I was weird but you were odd

FirmFoundations: thanks

Byronic_Menace: you were tho

FirmFoundations: I know, I was

FirmFoundations: can we stop talking about teenage me for a minute it's embarrassing

Byronic_Menace: sorry

Byronic_Menace: are you in touch with anyone from school? Facebook or anything?

FirmFoundations: not really not to speak of

Byronic_Menace: me neither. I talk to Daniel sometimes. And Tom B

FirmFoundations: I saw Tom B in Sainsbury’s last week

Byronic_Menace: well look at the pair of us putting zuckerberg out of business

FirmFoundations: do you actually think I’m hot?

Byronic_Menace: YES

FirmFoundations: you like skinny ginger men?

Byronic_Menace: yes I do. Actually. You’ve turned out so cute. Did you meet a genie in a lamp and make a wish or something?

FirmFoundations: a strange man gave me something to rub, yes.

Byronic_Menace: lol

Byronic_Menace: And you dress well, that helps. I like your aesthetic

FirmFoundations: you like slightly preppy skinny ginger men? Is this some kind of forbidden kink you can’t admit to your fellow goths?

Byronic_Menace: maybe. Yeah kinda is actually

Byronic_Menace: yr hair looks nice without all that gel. I like it.

FirmFoundations: thank you. Let’s meet up, then we can talk more. And brush each other's hair

Byronic_Menace: lol

FirmFoundations: we can meet and if it gets weird then we're just two old school mates looking each other up

Byronic_Menace: we weren’t mates, this is what’s funny

Byronic_Menace: I’m going on a date with Armitage Hux, this is so bizarre

FirmFoundations: careful, you could put a man off the idea

Byronic_Menace: sorry.

Byronic_Menace: I like you since we’ve been chatting. You’re alright on here. More than alright. So lets try and see 

FirmFoundations: likewise. You're much nicer than I recall. 

FirmFoundations: numbers then?

 

***

On this particular Wednesday, Hux made sure to look nice. He rolled a fresh shirt, tie, underpants and socks into a clean plastic bag, and put them in his day bag. Just in case. The bag was, of course, already blessed with a bare bones travel wash kit. Just in case.

He could leave work on the dot, walk to Great Portland Street and tube it to Farringdon. Or he could get the bus. Or he could walk. Maybe walk part of the way. Don’t want to arrive sweaty, but walking would be calming, psychologically. Walk part of the way and then get a number 55. 

Fuck! He was putting far too much thought into this. All to see this shitty emo bastard. Who also happened to be the guy he’d been chatting with and actually feeling a connection of sorts with. And also the shitty emo bastard who’d apparently been the face of his repressed and sublimated desires all along.

This was fate. This was ridiculous.

 

***

 

He looked around. In a booth, he could see him. The hair. The nose. He took a deep breath and approached.

“Hey. Hi. It’s, um…”

Ben stood up, smiled breathtakingly sweetly, and shook his hand.

Holy shit, he looked fantastic. Broad shoulders, a narrow waist, narrow suit trousers and Chelsea boots.

“Drink?”

“Yes. Let’s.”

Hux sat, and looked at the cocktail menu.

“They’re a bit try-hard, but they might be alright,” Ben said.

“Well,” Hux said. “That about sums it up.”

“What?”

“You. You’re a bit try-hard but you might be alright.”

Ben looked away and pouted. “It’s fine. If you feel like picking up from eight, ten years ago, be my guest.”

“I was making a joke. The emphasis was supposed to be on the might be alright part.”

“OK. Sorry. It is a bit weird. I think we’re going to have to acknowledge that it is a bit weird.”

“It is. Look. Let’s choose some drinks.” Hux smiled at Ben. He was very pleasant to look at indeed. He was noticing things that he hadn’t consciously noticed before, or had forgotten. Ben’s hands were massive, for example. He tended to chew on his lip while thinking: he was doing it now, perusing the cocktail menu. 

“I think I’ll have this blackberry and mint gin fizz.”

“Well, they’re calling this a Lucky Boy, and it’s got grapefruit bitters in it. Which is fitting, I suppose.”  

Nothing about this would have been remotely plausible, or indeed comprehensible, to the Armitage Hux who had been the classmate and rival and perhaps even enemy of the man who sat opposite him. He was going to order a cocktail, while on a date (this was a date, there was no way of hiding it) with a man; he very definitely intended to end the night wrapped around this particular man; and this particular man was that arrogant goth twat Richardson. 

He was three weeks away from twenty five years old, he was going to do all this because he felt like it, and nobody, most certainly not his younger self, was going to stop him.

Ben caught his eye and he smiled, shyly. 

 

***

 

“They do food. Grilled sandwiches. Pizza. If you want.”

“Let’s get some food then.”

It was going well. Hux watched Ben’s arse all the way to the bar where he ordered pizza and sparkling water (it being, after all, a week night and beer after those cocktails would have been an error). He imagined, for a second, flowing black robes in his wake. It would be rather majestic. Hell, it already was.

 

***

 

He’d never seen such a thing as Ben’s face split open in laughter at one of his comments: an improbable grin that illuminated the table, the room, the world. The weapon was armed. When their hands touched over the table, that was it. Detonator actuated.

 

***

 

“So did you bring a toothbrush?”

“Toothbrush? I have a micro travel wash kit and I brought a fresh shirt, tie, pants and socks. I am prepared.”

“Of course you are. Well, shall we go. Because I would like to be doing a _little_ more than we can realistically get away with in this bar.”

They kissed waiting for the train back to Ben’s place. Slightly nervous because even in the middle of London, even in the 21st century, you never entirely let your guard down. Ben’s mouth was warm, and he kissed with a slow but assertive seriousness that Hux found terribly exciting.

Walking back to the flat was a blur of improbability. Through the door, and they were on each other, barely breathing, teeth and tongues and hands in hair and then great gasping breaths of air.

Hux wished he could hold on to this, to be able to live it in slow motion. It was sweeping him away like a fast moving river, too fast to savour and he wanted to rewind to when they’d started because he’d need to live this over and over again.

Ben’s hair was soft and the back of his neck was warm under Hux’s hand.

“Bed. Come to bed. I have everything we need.”

Hux let him lead him into a bedroom. A double bed, two wardrobes, a tiny bedside nightstand and a chair. Surprisingly tidy. 

Ben’s boots were off and his suit jacket on the back of the chair.

“You can hang your jacket up if you like.”

Fumbling with his shoes, his heart beating so fast, feeling light headed, light bodied. His feet stepped to where Ben was holding out a coat hanger. He hung up the jacket and then Ben was kissing him again and working on his shirt buttons.

“I still can’t quite believe this.”

“Don’t think about it.”

Trousers off, somehow, on the back of the chair. Giggling, socks off, pushed back onto the bed, a warm body covering him. Hands on Ben’s back, which was as broad and lovely as he’d dreamed of since he’d had that sudden flooding realisation, up in his old room looking at those old notebooks, that he wanted this. Wanted it so badly.

Now a knee between his thighs and, oh, a lovely hardness nudging against his hip. Kisses on his neck.

Ben whispered hot against his ear. “How did you turn out like this?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, like… fuck… you’re absolutely beautiful.”

“Don’t talk now. Don’t say anything.”

“OK, no.” Ben immediately said something, however. “I want to suck you.” 

Ben’s mouth trailed down his body, his hand getting there first. Big and warm and pressing on him, so he couldn’t help but let out a muted “oh”. And then that mouth, hot breath through the fabric of his shorts, lips mouthing at him through it.

Hux actually whimpered. He didn’t deserve this any of this. Hadn’t merited it, even in his stupid fantasies where he commanded thousands.

Warm and eager hands pulled his shorts off him, and he thrilled at being made naked. Exposed. Desired. 

Still too skinny and insubstantial, but desired. “Beautiful,” he’d said.

A nose was nuzzling into his inner thigh, and then he felt the light touches of fingertips and tongue tip on his balls. Then kissing open mouthed up his shaft, and finally taking him in; into that wet warm mouth. Hux gasped at the firm slide of Ben’s wet lips and tongue over the head of his cock. 

Ben’s hair fell forward, a soft tickle on his belly. Hux raised his head up to see, sighed and panted in appreciation as Ben’s tongue worked on him, velvety but insistent. A hand slipped under his balls and pressed firmly on him, flooding even more warm delicious pleasure through him.

“By all means use your fingers.”

Ben hurriedly reached into his bedside table for a bottle. The lid clicked open. Hux watched, breathing coarsely, as Ben slicked up two fingers. He tucked a leg over Ben’s shoulder and Ben organised his hand before going right back down on him.

One finger rubbed and pressed Hux open, and slid slowly in. It probed, wiggled and pressed. Sensation lay hot and heavy, low in Hux’s abdomen.

“Don't stop.”

He didn’t. The second finger slid in alongside the first. The mouth kept working.

Hux wrenched handfuls of bedsheets in his fists and pushed his narrow hips up into Ben’s mouth. 

He glanced down again. The sight of Ben’s lips over his cock, the line of Ben’s nose and eyebrows, his arm against Hux’s side: disbelief lingered, but it was so beautiful, so perfect. 

“Going to come soon. Thought you should know.”

Ben pulled off and worked Hux with his other hand, while still stroking and pressing inside him. Watching him intently, eyes full of lust, mouth open. Hux wanted to be looked at like that when he came, again. Often. As much as possible, from now on. 

The bedsheets pulled taut in his fists and he was there, head thrown back, crying out like an animal. He lay flat on his back, panting roughly to get his breath.

Ben dragged himself up the bed. “We can, and should,” he said, “do a lot more of that. I didn’t know you were going to be loud.” 

Hux heard the rasp of a tissue being pulled from a box, and then he was being gently, considerately, wiped off. After he had recovered further, he raised himself onto his side, and trailed his hand down Ben’s body and between his legs. Ben closed his eyes and sighed.

“Your turn now,” Hux said, closing his hand around Ben’s cock. “Tell me how you like it.”

“Slow.”

Hux stroked him slowly, from base to tip, flexing his fingers over him. “I’m sure everyone tells you this, but you are actually quite big.”

“Mmm.”

“It’s very, very nice. I like it.”

“Mmm, Hux…”

“Not had anything this big for a while,” he whispered.

“You know all the right things to say.”

“I want it. I want you. I don’t know how I got so lucky.” He nibbled at the tender spot under Ben’s ear.

“Maybe it was meant to be.”

 Hux looked down on him: flushed, panting, his brows gathering, grunting and sighing, eyelashes flickering. He was lovely. Broad and strong and being undone by Hux’s slender fingers on him.

 

***

 

Hux woke before the alarm that he had been so careful to set, having calculated enough extra time to get to work plus an extra twenty minutes for allowances.

He had slept well. Warm and comfortable.

Ben was drooling onto his pillow. Hux shifted and half sat up, very gently so as not to wake him. He watched him quietly in the few minutes before his phone alarm was going to go off. He thought about touching his hair. Kissing his eyebrows. Sucking delicately at the bridge of his nose.

The alarm sounded. He rose out of bed before he could be caught looking and nearly tripped over a set of weights resting under the window.

He wished he’d had the presence of mind to get his clean shirt out of his bag. He unrolled it and shook it out. It was actually passable, unlike the one he’d had on yesterday, which had spent the night on the floor.

A voice came from the bed. “It’s fucking early.”

“I don’t want to be late.”

“Hmm.  I should… fucking hell.” Ben rubbed the back of his hand on his forehead. “I should get you coffee. Or tea.”

“Coffee, please.”

Ben lurched out of the bedroom. 

Hux located his electric shaver (emergencies, for the use of) at the bottom of his day bag. He caught sight of himself in Ben’s mirrored wardrobe. Well, he thought. Look at you, here. He smiled. Well _done_.

 

***

 

Victoria Station was utterly heinous.

If ever there was a time to _keep moving_ and _get out of the way_ , 0815 on a bloody weekday morning would surely be it.

 

***

 

It was only 1140 when Hux received a text.

 

Ben R: Can’t stop thinking about you. Call me tonight.

A Hux: Likewise. I will.

A Hux: Come over to mine at the weekend. Flatmate’s at his girlfriend’s.

Ben R: Would love to. Could come over after work tomorrow actually

A Hux: I’ll get some wine.

Ben R: Sounds good

A Hux: You can stay Saturday if you like. Or as long as you like

Ben R: I’ve got work stuff to prepare so I need to be back at mine on Sunday.

A Hux: Whatever suits you 

Ben R: Trekking all the way across town to see you. Must be keen.

A Hux: I’ll try to make it worth it ;)

 

***

 

On Friday, Hux glanced at his watch more than usual. He wasn’t counting the minutes, exactly. The hours, maybe.

At lunchtime, he went out to obtain wine. A helpful gentleman in the wine shop advised on a suitable Chateauneuf du Pape, and Hux also secured some goats cheese and Bath Olivers from Sainsbury’s. He found himself grateful once again for having been invited to at least one college wine society meeting and for having learned a thing or two about wine, so as to treat the _soi-disant_ Byronic Menace (good _lord_ ) in the style to which he was accustomed.

Hux’s flatmate was going to be out for the whole evening and spending the night at his girlfriend’s place. The setup was perfect, the living room tidy; clean sheets were on the bed.

The buzzer went. Hux was more full of anticipation than he’d been in a tremendously long time. He buzzed Ben in, and stood by the front door of the flat, tall and straight backed, but shuffling and jiggling very slightly.

“Hello.”

Ben kissed him on the cheek, then the lips. He was wearing a large shawl-like scarf, reminiscent of the one he used to wear in the sixth form, but made of a loose linen weave that was very pleasant to the touch between Hux’s fingers.

Hux led Ben through to the living room, where he had laid out wine, cheese and crackers with the flat’s best two wineglasses.

“Ooh, a nice Chateauneuf,” he said, unwinding the scarf and depositing it on the arm of the sofa. “And goats cheese. You are full of more and more little surprises.”

Ben’s approval struck him as a mild absurdity. It lifted him, though, as if he were aloft in a column of bubbles, breaking and fizzing at the base of his neck.

He sat and poured the wine. His foot jiggled, but his hand did not shake. They clinked their glasses together, and sipped.

“This is rather good. Nicely plummy.” Good. Good.

The topic ought to be raised fairly soon, and now that they had actually got together and furthermore actually fucked, it wasn’t so weighted. Hopefully. So Hux took a sip, savoured, swallowed, and spoke. “You know when I said I sort of had a weird crush on you?”

“Yeah, you said.”

“Well,” Hux stopped himself. He wasn’t going to be able to say it right out after all. “This is so embarrassing, but it’s funny.”

“I’m open to embarrassing but funny stories. Not too embarrassing though. Not fully cringeworthy.”

“Well. I hope this falls the right side of the line. It’s just… Ben, I was _so_ weird, and so, so gay.”

“Yep.” Ben smirked. “Accurate.”

“I was a weird kid with, let’s say, an active inner life.”  

“Hm. I suppose me too, in a way. What my mum used to call ‘away with the fairies’ when I was little.”

“It was focused, though.”

“Funny how you’re a civil engineer now: like, literally the most down to earth job. Science and maths and nuts and bolts and hard hats and digging.”

“It’s not just that actually.” 

Ben raised an eyebrow.

“No, look, everyone thinks that engineers are all boring and we aren’t. We are not. We have imaginations and a sense of beauty.”

“OK, OK”

“The whole philosophy of where I work is Total Design. I wouldn’t have got the job I have if I didn’t have a sense of aesthetics and why it’s important. Getting to put a design into practice is much more than just doing stress calculations on a bunch of steels and concrete so you can bung up a boring building.”

“You’re really passionate about it, I like that.”

“Well, Mr Corporate Law Sellout…”

“Hey. HEY. You cannot possibly do the work you do and not see the importance of intellectual property”

“Obviously I fucking do.” Hux took a sip of wine and held the glass, thinking for a moment. “I thought you’d have gone for the Bar.”

“Well. Yes,” Ben said, in a tightened voice. “I was supposed to end up a barrister but I took the sellout option. The independent Bar is gonna be a thing of the past soon. So my uncle Simon was at pains to point out.” Ben inhaled through his nose and exhaled again, lips pressed tight together.

“OK, OK, alright.”

Uncle Bloody Simon. Nice for some of us to have an uncle who was a bloody QC who could give sage and experienced advice about the future of the legal profession. Who could have called in a few favours to get Ben his training contract at a top firm, once he’d decided to take the second best option of being a high-earning corporate sellout. So _nice_ for Ben to have all these connections, because that was the thing, you didn’t need to have gone to a top private school if you actually had the connections anyway. Melissa Richardson MP had had to send her son to a state school because of politics, but it was just window dressing.

Hux had done it all by his own hard work and discipline and yes, his parents had encouraged him but he’d fucking well done it without any MPs or QCs or daddy’s friends. If he’d been in the Combined Cadet Force at school, his dad probably would have been able to pull some strings; but that hadn’t been how it had worked out.

“You alright there?” 

“Yeah, just thinking a bit,” and he had to cast about for a plausible thing to have been thinking about. They’d been talking about their jobs and values and all of that. He went onto autopilot. “It’s been challenging, actually, because part of me still wants everything to be in its place, boxed in, rigid boundaries, all of that.”

“Yeah, boxed in, buttoned up, that was definitely you back then.”

“So, no, it’s like, being forced to work in an integrated way, across boundaries, has been good for me.”

“Hux? We’re talking about our career choices and your professional and personal development, which is great and would make a lovely Sunday Times magazine article, but you were going to tell me about your weird crush on me, so if you could?”

“OK. I’m kind of laying the groundwork for that, in a way. So. Picture me, aged 13 to 16. Awkward, nerdy, geeky, active imagination that I didn’t really share with anyone, liked the idea of certainty and rigidity and all that. Got the picture?”

“Yes, that’s what you were like, I do remember, carry on.”

“So obviously I was a big scifi geek, and I had this kind of long running fantasy going on in my head…”

“About me?”

“No. Not exactly, but kind of. I’m coming to that but I have to tell the whole thing. Shit this is awkward. Fuck. If you just want to stop and leave at any point”

“Hey! Relax. Just tell the story. I won’t judge you. Not too much anyway.”

“But you _are_ the weird aloof goth kid who sat in the corner and looked out from under his hair at me and judged me. That _is_ you. And you’re the amazingly hot guy I’ve suddenly ended up with and who I want to impress, and on both counts this could be bad.”

“You’re really cute when you get flustered.”

“Fuck. Well. I had this long running fantasy going on in my head which was kind of like a continuation of Star Wars.”

Ben giggled. “This is nice! I love Star Wars. Everyone loves Star Wars.”

“And I made up this whole scenario of what if the Empire tried to rebuild after then end of Return of the Jedi, like, what if some of the Imperial officers had gone off to some distant planets and regrouped.”

“Wow, like, uh, in actual history, with Nazis legging it to Argentina after the war?”

“Yeah, kind of. I wasn’t really aware of that when I started, I don’t think, but I remember watching a documentary about it and thinking, oh so it is actually plausible.’”

“Perón’s government sheltered them and would have worked with them; he thought they were going to make Argentina into a new superpower.” Of course Ben had to be showing off with his actual history knowledge, but never mind.

“Yeah, in my thing the ex-Imperials were going to work with sympathisers and try to make a new Empire.”

“So, OK, go on.”

“Thing is, this makes me look like a really bad person, with those Nazi parallels and I was just a kid with some odd ideas. I thought the Empire in Star Wars was really cool and I wanted to make up a thing based on that, and I may have taken it too far and it’s all just this pathetic weedy little kid fantasising about being a brilliant military leader and…”

“Oh, ho; so you were in it, this thing?”

“Yes, that’s the point; that’s why this is so embarrassing, fuck!”

“The Empire _was_ really cool though.” Ben gave a quick grin. “It’s not embarrassing to think they looked cool. I used to love those Imperial guards with the red robes and helmets, the Emperor’s bodyguards. They were the best.”

“They were awesome.” Hux poured a little more wine.

“And I loved Darth Vader. Everyone loves Darth Vader. The Dark Side is just cooler.” Ben paused half a moment for thought. “I mean, all the scenes on board the Death Star and the Star Destroyers are great.”

“Yeah, they were. The corridors on the Death Star, those angles, and Darth Vader’s meditation chamber, and that whole dark side aesthetic, I loved it. And I kind of copied it, and adapted it and made my thing, which I called, erm, the First Order.”

“Oh, cos that’s not fascist _at all_.”

“No, it is, it is. I admit that. Because, they thought they were the elite of the galaxy and they were going to, rule, I suppose.”

“Hand wave, hand wave, bullshit, bullshit,” Ben said, through a mouthful of Bath Oliver and goats cheese.

“Look! I was fourteen, fifteen! I just wanted lots of stormtroopers under my command. Doing their parade ground drills, going and fighting battles. You know. Stormtrooper stuff. But better than the original ones. Like, mine would actually be able to hit a target with a blaster gun.”

“Who were you fighting?”

“I don’t know! The Jedi. Luke Skywalker. Rebel scum. People who don’t have their Oyster card ready.” 

Ben giggled and took a sip of wine. 

“There was territorial expansion. Stormtroopers overthrowing governments, taking over planets”

“You might as well.”

“And we had a big weapon. Like the Death Star, but bigger.”

Ben snorted. “This is adorable! Like the Death Star but bigger.”

“Yeah, it was a whole hollowed out planet. And it sucked in solar plasma and converted it to some weird energy beam, and shot that out into space and, boom, target eliminated.”

“How did it work?”

“Well, obviously all the science is impossible, you’d need a black hole to suck in the solar matter, and you can’t then spit that out in a way that you can target, I mean, it’s all just scifi handwaving. But I wrote pages and pages about it in my notebook.”

“Have you still got the notebook? Tell me you have!”

“I’m not going to show you.”

“Awww.” Ben shuffled closer. “I want you to show me round your massive Death Star planet base thing. I bet it was a huge project. Imagine all the digging and I don’t know, stress calculations, you’d have had to do.”

“I know! That was kind of one of the best bits actually. It’d be a huge project, I mean the civils side alone, and then you’d have fucking immense magnetic coils keeping the plasma in place as it got sucked in, and there’d be some kind of converter plant and a targeting array and an energy field generator and all kinds of things.”

“Oh my god, you’re still excited about it.”

“I am! It was really cool. I will freely admit that I’m proud of designing a better Death Star. It was called the Starkiller, by the way.”

“Hmm. Name’s a bit naff.”

“Suit yourself.”

Ben nudged his thigh up against Hux’s. “No, tell me more about it”

“OK, so I made myself this character who was in charge of the base and the weapon, and he had a Star Destroyer under his command as well.”

“Greedy. Leave some for the other Imperials. So what was he called?”

“Well, he was _me_. So I just wrote down ‘General Hux’ in my notebook.”

“Ooh, _General_ Hux, hey? This is _so cute_. If I’d known I’d have wanted to join in.”

“No you wouldn’t. You’d have said it was all shit.”

“Hmm. Dunno. Fifty fifty. Depends if I get to be Darth Vader or whatever equivalent your thing had. Tell me you had a Darth Vader.”

“Ah. Well. See, this is the thing.” Hux took a deep breath. “Yes I did have a Darth Vader type character and yes you very much do get to be him. Because, look, I actually didn’t _intentionally_ base him on you or anything, not to start with, but it turns out I sort of did.”

“I’m your Darth Vader? Oh, Armitage! I’m honestly touched.” Hux wasn’t sure if Ben was taking the piss or not. Signs actually did seem to point to _not_.

“Well, not Darth Vader because he’s dead by this point, obviously, but the equivalent.”

“Tell me about him! Does he have a lightsaber? I want a lightsaber.”

“Oh, absolutely he does. It’s red, of course, and it actually crackles and spits, like fire.”

“Cool!”

“Yeah, but the reason it’s like that is it’s made with a cracked kyber crystal, so it’s unstable. And it might just blow up in his hand because he wasn’t exactly very good at making it.”

“Oh. That’s not fair.”

“But, it’s got cross guards! Like a broadsword.”

“Yay!”

“But the reason it’s got these cross guards is just as side vents, to stop it overheating and blowing up.”

“Boo.”

“It looked cool, though. I drew a couple of pictures.”

“I want to see.”

“I’m not showing you.”

“Tell me what his costume was like, though. Was it like Darth Vader?”

“A bit. He had a helmet, but more flat at the front than Darth Vader’s, with an eye slit. And he usually wore a hooded cowl like a monk.”

“All in black though, yeah?”

“All in black. With a tunic and a surcoat over the top, so like half monk, half medieval knight.”

“That’s so cool, I love it. You should’ve told me, I would have loved all this!”

“You wouldn’t, you’d have laughed at me.”

“Yeah, maybe I would. But secretly I would have loved it.”

“You can still laugh at me, I haven’t got to the bit that was embarrassing. Well, I laughed at myself when I found the notebooks again.”

“OK.”

“Well, he was, for a start they were both quite young. Like thirty-odd.”

“A general at thirty? That’s going it some.”

“Thirty-four. But, yeah. Everyone was sort of young and ambitious, like they were just kids when the Empire fell and they’d been indoctrinated into it, or they were really keen on bringing things back the way they were for whatever reason. There were a few crusty old blokes, I suppose, but it was mainly young people in their twenties and thirties.”

“I suppose when you’re what did you say, thirteen, fourteen – thirty must seem like fully grown up.”

“Yeah, that’s it, I think.” He didn’t explain that he’d initially put himself in the fantasy at his actual age, and then shortly afterwards decided the idea of a child prodigy military leader was too stupid, and had therefore simply added twenty. “But the point about them being young, the knight being young…”

“What was he called, your young monk knight Darth Vader guy? Or is it too silly for words?”

“Kylo. He was called Kylo.”

“I quite like it. It’s very Star Wars. Just Kylo, or did he have a last name?”

Hux was starting to sweat. “Well, he was part of this thing called the Knights of Ren…”

“Ooh.”

“…And so he was Kylo Ren”

“Kylo Ren.” Ben mused. “I like that.”

“Anyway, the point was,” Hux was definitely hot around the neck now, “he was young and quite fit. I mean, quite _quite_ fit. The costume was sort of figure-hugging in places.”

“Which places would those be?”

“The sleeves were very tight. And so you could see the contours of,” and he put a hand on Ben’s bicep, “the underlying musculature.”

“Hmmmm. Nice. So, were they, did they have a thing going on, this Kylo Ren and your General Hux?”

“No! See that’s what’s funny. I said, didn’t I, that I didn’t come out at all not even to myself until I was nineteen.”

“Yeah, you did.”

“So, I invented this hot, ripped, dark knight to be my sort of professional rival and nemesis, and I did not realise how gay this was until a long, long time later. Honestly.”

“So you didn’t realise at all? Not a clue? Shit, you must have been even more repressed than you looked.”

“I was! I absolutely was. I did sort of know that I liked blokes, but I just assumed that I’d turn out straight, because, oh, I don’t know! I was an idiot!”

“Wow. So if I’d asked you out, back then, say in sixth form, what would you have done?”

“Panicked? Said no out of fear? Assumed it was a trap?”

“Oh, bless you, Armitage Hux, you are so weird and so cute.”

“Do you mind? I am _not_ weird. Not like I was.”

“You said he was sort of based on me, but ’only sort of’, this Kylo Ren. How do you mean?”

“OK, it wasn’t conscious, at least not to begin with. It only fully hit me when I found the old books, and I’d done this messy sketch of what he’d look like with the helmet off, and…”

“It was me?” Ben was holding back a giggle, but he really did look, well, approving. Enthusiastic. 

“Put it this way, he had shoulder length black hair and a long face. I’d already thought ‘wow, Armitage you idiot, you were gayer than you realised’ while I was looking through the books for the first time in years, back at my parents’ house after uni, and then I flipped a couple of pages and was just ‘ _oh my fucking god_ that’s Ben Richardson, I literally drew Ben Richardson and his stupid hair and his big nose oh shit’ and I think I went a bit light headed.”

Ben was properly giggling again. “This is amazing. This is so great.”

“You aren’t freaked out?”

“It’s surreal. But I like it. I had no idea!”

“I had no idea and I was the one who did it.”

“Tell me more about this Kylo. You said they were rivals?”

“Yeah. They didn’t get on, because, um, the General, he was all about technology and the military.”

“Like Grand Moff Tarkin?”

“Exactly, like him but better.”

Ben howled with laughter. “Like him but better! I am loving this. I’m laughing in a good way, I promise.”

“Because he’d engineered the whole Starkiller weapon, using top secret new technology, and he was in charge of the new Stormtrooper training program, which was all simulations, VR and that sort of thing.”

“Mm hmm.”

“And Kylo Ren was all about the old ways of using the Dark Side of the Force, and being a Knight, and that mystical magical side of things. And General Hux didn’t really believe in the Force…”

“You don’t believe in the Force! I’m insulted!”

Hux laughed. “This is how it was! They hated each other and they’d argue all the time.”

“They ‘hated each other’ and they were constantly bickering?”

“Um, yes.”

Ben leant in closer to Hux. “They were totally shagging.”

“Mmm. You think so?”

“Couldn’t keep their hands off each other,” he said, sliding a hand up Hux’s side and onto his back. Hux’s chest heaved as they kissed – the thought of his General and Knight in a passionate embrace was surprisingly arousing. “They’d go,” Ben said, between kisses, “into storage closets,” his breath hot and delicious, “and shove their hands into each other’s pants,” his heartbeat palpable under Hux’s hand, “because they just couldn’t stand it any more.”

“And they’d curse each other all the time,” Hux managed to get out.

“While getting each other off.”

“The General would hate himself, because he didn’t have the time for distractions and he shouldn’t lust after a man like Kylo.”

“Kylo would hate himself because he couldn’t afford distractions from the Dark Side of the Force”

“But they wouldn’t stop.”

“I bet the rest of the crew would gossip about them.”

A key turned in the lock. They froze.

“Shit, that’s my flatmate coming back. Get in the kitchen and look like you’re washing up.”

Ben did as he was told.

Hux tried hard not to look flustered.

“Hi, Armitage, don’t panic, this is just a flying visit”

“Hi, Greg, um, no worries.”

“Just need to grab a couple of things and then I’m off to Bernadette’s”

Hux breathed. “OK, sure. Um, say hi to Bernie for me.”

Greg emerged busily from his room. “You lads have fun now; ha ha,” he said and with a slam of the door and a rush of feet heading down the stairs, he was gone. 

 Fuck.

Hux leant against the kitchen doorway and laughed. “Holy shit. Why did I panic then? Did I need to panic? Fuck knows.”

“Well,” and Ben dried the glasses which he had actually washed up, “he’s gone now, so we should really go to bed. Shouldn’t we?”

“We should.”

So they did.

 

 ***

 

It was late in the morning. Ben’s body was pressed hot against his back, his lips and his breath hot against his neck. His warm, powerful, muscular arm was tucked across Hux’s body, with his hand between Hux’s legs.

Hux bit his lip, and made a series of grunting little sighs.

Ben’s hand worked slowly and with purpose.

“You like that,” he murmured against Hux’s neck.

“Yes,” Hux whispered, “yes,” and, “you're so good.”

Ben kissed at the nape of Hux’s neck and dabbed his tongue there in little wet dabs, mopping them up with more kisses.

What he was doing with his hand, his slippery fingers and slick palm; it was a marvel. Hux was going to luxuriate in this.

“You’re good,” he said again.

“Mmm,” Ben murmured into his neck.

His breaths got a little louder, breaking out from subvocalisation to vocalisation. Ben’s warm wet neck kisses encouraged him. He pushed back against Ben’s own hardness and considered thinking, just vaguely, of his Knight. How that might be. If that might not be too much.

“You like that… General.”

That was him over the edge. Suddenly through and beyond. 

“Hmm. Wow.” Ben’s voice was soft and low. “Was not expecting that.”

“Sorry, I, um, sorry. Fuck.” He was terribly aware of the wetness on Ben’s hand and across his chest. If it had been within his power to warn, he would have, but it had been the most abrupt and sudden orgasm of his life. “ _Fuck_.”

“No, it’s…Wow. I have never known power like this.”

“It’s not, I mean it’s not like a magic word that you can just use.” Hux reached for a tissue and mopped himself off. “It was, I mean I _will_ need you to do that again some time. If it’s OK.”

“Oh, I will. I will. Fuck, you just _went_. Like I say, I’ve never known power like it.” 

“Well. I suppose it’s not actually the Force, but…”

“Oh my god, if I actually could use the Force, I would do all kinds of things with it.” His hand caressed Hux’s waist. “I could touch you. From a distance. Make you feel invisible fingers on you. Inside you, even.”

“Oh hell, yes.”

“I could hold you up, against a wall. I could hold you _down_. I don’t know what your thoughts are on restraint.”

“If it was with the Force, it would be… wow, yes, that is quite appealing.”  Hux turned over. “Let’s focus on the possible, though. Want to carry on, in a bit?”

“Of course.”

Hux brushed his thumb over Ben’s cheek. “I don’t know how this has all happened. I won’t say it’s like a dream or anything silly like that, but it’s just such an improbable series of events.”

“I’m not complaining. It’s odd to get used to the fact that it’s you. The same person. But I like that I know some of what was going on in your head back then.”

Hux gave a short laugh. “Star Wars and trying to compensate for being such a weird dorky little kid.”

“And repressed sexuality.”

“God, all of it. Thank you for not finding it all too weird.”

“It’s amazing. It’s like I’m, I don’t know, sort of woven in to your libido or something. It’s fascinating.” 

“Your ego is something else.”

Ben shrugged. “Maybe. Wouldn’t say no to tea and toast.”

 “No toast in bed. That’s a rule.” Hux got up, put on his dressing gown and made for the kitchen. 

Tea brewed and toast having just popped up, Ben appeared at the kitchen door in boxer shorts and a faded T shirt. Hux’s eyes, despite him, journeyed to Ben’s crotch. Still a good two thirds hard. Nice. And the legs. The _legs_.

“I can spread.” There was a pause. “Uh, the butter. On the toast.”

Hux giggled and snorted. 

“How… look, no, I have an actual question. How are you funny? Were you always funny? Was I just… how?”

“I think I’ve always been funny. If you’re asking whether you, or anyone, saw me at my best at school, at fucking _school_ , then… answer’s in the question, really.”

“Yeah. Point. I’m not one to talk. Here’s your tea.”

Ben sucked down the tea and posted the toast almost whole into his capacious mouth. He chewed, swallowed, and looked at Hux from under his brows. “You’re very pretty when you laugh. By the way.” He looked away again.

It truly was an improbable series of events.

“You’ll get cold stood about like that. Come on, let’s go back to bed.”

The bed was still warm, and Hux himself was still warm under his dressing gown. He tangled his legs around Ben’s, and folded his arms around him.

 Their kisses were gentle and soft. They became longer and hotter and soon Ben was peeling off his T shirt again to press himself against Hux and gather him near. Hux clutched firmly at Ben’s broad, warm back and pushed his hips against him. 

“I like,” Ben said, “as I may have mentioned in dispatches, to be fucked.” 

“Good job I’m hard again.” He nibbled and sucked at Ben’s earlobe, making him catch his breath. “How do you want it?”

“I’ll lie on my front.” He rolled over and spread his legs, offering himself up. “Like this, I think.” The curve of his buttocks and the angle of his thighs were unbelievably inviting.

Hux reached for his supplies, and slicked his fingers with lubricant. Ben sighed at his first gentle, circling touch. He pressed against the muscle and it yielded, sudden and glorious. He poured a little more lubricant on his fingers: they slid further in to Ben’s hot and lovely arse. He stroked and pressed and stretched, and his other hand kneaded gently at a buttock.

“Want more than your fingers now.”

“Then you’ll have it.” Hux slid his fingers slowly, very slowly out. He tore open the condom packet and rolled the condom over his cock with enviable efficiency, then slicked himself liberally.

“Want you. Mmm, Hux.”

 The slide into Ben’s tight velvet was impossibly good. He was between his lovely thighs. _In him_. Leaning over his broad back, with a flush creeping over his shoulders. Leaning towards his messy hair, with one pink tipped ear poking out. _In him_. Hearing his moans and sighs. It was truly and honestly better than being inside anyone else had ever been. 

He fisted his hand in Ben’s hair, and gently tugged. Ben made a strangled noise of utter delight. 

He picked up the pace, and delighted in the moans and cries and breathless pants coming from beneath him, until he lost everything else but the feeling of it. 

 

***

 

A Hux: Wagner. Ring. Yes/no?

Ben R: Yes. I like the music, you like the politics.

A Hux: Stop it. 

A Hux: It’s on at the Royal Opera House as you may know

A Hux: Would you be interested in seeing Siegfried with me?

A Hux: we would try to get day tickets, Sunday 21st.

Ben R: Yes, what time

A Hux: Queue for tix at 10am, performance 3pm

Ben R: Ok.

Ben R: idea, dim sum lunch in between 

A Hux: performance is six hours long btw

Ben R: no problem 

A Hux: OK, you definitely want to come to the opera with me for SIX (6) hours, just checking

Ben R: Of course! Plus it sounds good, is the sort of extracurriculars the partners approve of

Ben R. “My boyfriend’s taking me to the opera.”

A Hux: you would make it about showing off

Ben R: cultural capital. Soft skills. 

A Hux: if we can't get tickets we’ll do something else

 

Ben had said “boyfriend” like it was nothing.

They were lucky enough to get two tickets together, and so Hux was actually taking a man to the opera. Only the cheap seats, up where the oxygen was thin, but still. The opera.

As promised, they walked to Chinatown and got dim sum for lunch. Hux quietly preened at the fact he knew more about what he was eating than Ben did, and raised his tea in a secret toast to his various Chinese colleagues and friends.

A long lunch and an afternoon stroll and then back to the Royal Opera House to settle in for many, _many_ hours of Wagner.    

The staging for the first act was interesting – a wartime theme with barbed wire and a crashed plane. They both agreed that Bryn Terfel’s Wotan was superb in the flesh, and looked forward to more of him in the second act. 

Toward the end of the long second interval, they returned to their seats.

The opening of the third act told them that something powerful was about to happen. Siegfried would take off Brünnhilde’s helmet, and then he would truly knew fear, because he was falling in love with the beautiful warrior he had wakened after many years’ sleep.

Somewhat disappointingly, this production had Siegfried and Brünnhilde standing in separate parts of the stage, and though Hux willed them closer together, separate they remained. Nonetheless, the music was beautiful, and he reached his left hand deftly and discreetly into his pocket, found a tissue, and quietly dabbed his eyes.

 

_Lache und lebe,_

_süsseste Lust!_

_Sei mein! Sei mein! Sei mein!_

 

***

 

_(November 2012)_

Ben lay with his head in Hux’s lap. Hux was gently brushing his hair, and it was every bit as wonderful as he had imagined. Ben did many things well, and luxuriating in sensual bliss ranked highly among those things.

He shifted in Hux’s lap and opened one eye. “Did you have an Emperor, in your thing?”

“Kind of. He was a Supreme Leader though, not an Emperor”

“Oh, a Supreme Leader. Pretty much the same thing though? The big boss?”

“Yep. Kylo Ren and General Hux…”

“That’s you, that is,” Ben interrupted, lazily.

“Yes I know, shush, you’re embarrassing me,” Hux said. “They answered to him. And they’d be rivals for his approval. They’d both want to be the more important one.”

Ben giggled.

Hux stopped brushing. “What?”

“That’s just what you were like in real life though.”

Hux made a small noise of indignation. 

“You _were_! Any time I got some credit or praise from a teacher, you would be _seething_. It was kind of funny. I started showing off in English mainly just to piss you off.”

“I know. You little shit.”

“You were so easy to wind up.”

“Maybe.”

“Anyway. Back to the thing. So they’ve got a boss and there’s this rivalry and he’s probably playing them off against each other a bit?”

“Yep, he would definitely be using their rivalry against them.”

“Yep. Because you are very petty and quite easy to troll.”

“Well actually, Kylo was petty and easy to troll, too. The Supreme Leader would just have to tell him he wasn’t trying hard enough with the Force, or whatever.”

“OK, OK.” Ben rolled his eyes. “My point is, the Supreme Leader doesn’t know they’re fucking. Or at least, they try keep it a secret.”

“An element of danger. Hmm. It’s got potential.”

“Imagine it. We’d be each other’s _dirty little secret_.”  Ben’s voice was low and warm and laced with passion. He turned over and rested his palm over Hux’s now growing erection. “You like the sound of that.” 

 

***

 

“I won’t have you question my methods,” Hux muttered.

“Erm, I wasn’t?” 

“Mmm, but could you? A bit? Like, imply my soldiers aren’t capable or something”

Hux felt Ben laugh gently. “Oh, um, OK. Let me see.” He paused, then, in a perfect dismissive tone, “Are your troops competent, General?”

Hux’s breath caught in his chest. “My soldiers are exceptionally trained,” he hissed.

“By you?”

“Under my command.”

“I think you should show me what you're capable of.”

“Hmm.”

 

***

 

Hux wished he didn’t have to take a week long trip to the Manchester office. It was stupid really: the project site he would be visiting was interesting, and it was a chance to meet colleagues and make connections. All good professional development. But his priorities had seemingly been shaken. 

It was only a week. 

Only a week, and it all did go rather well, though the train journey back was awful.

On the day of his return to the London office, front desk reception notified him of a delivery waiting for him to pick up. Flowers. Flowers! An honest to goodness bouquet of flowers. Roses. Hydrangeas. A note: “none of the poems I know are right. Too much or not enough. Missed you. B.”

 

***

 

“Listen, I mean, would you like me to dress up… as him?”

“Well I wouldn’t exactly mind… I mean I don’t know”

“I would, you know.”

This was beyond the bounds of reason.

Ben didn't wait for an answer. “What does he wear, then? Start with the trousers. What are they like?

“A narrow pair of trousers.” Hux bit his lip and shook his head. “This is so embarrassing. But, look, you asked.”

“Listen, black jeans I can do. That’s easy.”

“Actually slightly shiny; I wouldn’t necessarily say leather, but…”

“Ooh. Could be done.” Ben gave a wicked smile and raised an eyebrow. “Leather, hmm?”

“Look, there’s probably always been things I’ve liked but I didn’t really put two and two together at the time, as we know.”

“Go on then. Top half?”

“Long sleeved top, but really long sleeved, like half covering your hands”

“Oh, I’ve got one like that. Wait a sec.”

Ben opened one of his wardrobes, revealing a set of drawers inside, and started rummaging. 

“Here. Look, I’ll try it on”

“You don’t need to do that.”

“Yes, but, why not?”

Ben peeled off his T shirt and Hux bit back a wide and gleeful grin at the mere sight of his body. He pulled on the long sleeved jersey. It was rather nice. More lightweight than Hux had remember envisaging Kylo’s tunic, and so perhaps more of an under layer. What did it matter in any case?

“The top is more of a knee length tunic.”

“Well, we could make that.”

“Why are you so keen?”

“Because it’s fun! I like dressing up. And let’s be honest, it’ll give you the raging horn, so…”  

“Am I that transparent?”

“I like having an effect on you.” He smiled. “Ok, so what comes next?”

“Over the top of that there’s a long surcoat. Almost floor length. I mean, what, are we going to get you a dress or make one?” 

“I’ve got one but I don't know if it's long enough.”

“What?”

“Yeah. I've got two actually but one’s the dress I wore to the college summer ball.”

“You wore a dress to your May ball?”

“Yeah. Want to see pictures? There’s some on… actually the ones on Facebook are good.”

“Fuck yes.”

Ben fetched his laptop.

“Oh, wow. You look incredible.”

“I had to get a bit added to the bottom to make it long enough. A friend had a sewing machine, and she sewed on an extra foot of tulle there, but you can't really tell, can you?”

“The eye is rather drawn upwards.” The neckline. The lace. The shoulders. “Nobody gave you a hard time about it?”

“There were some raised eyebrows but who was actually going to say anything…”

“You were probably bigger than most of them except the first boat, so…”

“Never start on a big man in a dress,” Ben said, thoughtfully. “That's… not rule one, but it probably is rule four or five.”

“Ha! You look amazing. Stunning. It’s… I think I should file this under ’things I didn't know I was into,’ it turns out.”

“You'd have had your hands up my skirt, then?”

“I'd have had my _head_ up there.”

“Ooh. So eager. So keen.”

Hux ran his hands over Ben. The fabric of his jersey was thin and clinging. His hands slid onto his chest and cupped its proud cushiony contours. “I knew I was into _this_ , though.” He found a nipple and brought it to a firm peak under his fingertips. “How long could I tease you like this, do you think?”

“Keep going. Then you might find out.”

“Oh, a test set-up. Nice. Although this isn’t exactly laboratory conditions. We will apply a constant rate of… stimulation, and see how long it takes before the system enters, well, as an engineer I would call it a failure mode; although that seems a little unfair.”

 After three minutes, Ben’s response shifted from grunting to moaning. Hux idly thought he ought to be taking notes. 

 

***

 

He hadn’t said it. He really ought to have said it. Perhaps he had already waited too long.

 

***

 

“Shall we pretend we’re on your Star Destroyer?”

“Hmm, alright.” 

It was far better than alright. If Hux had been a religious man, he would have sung praises, made pilgrimages and had Masses said in thanks for Ben’s enthusiasm for role play.

“Has it got a name?”

“Oh fuck’s sake. Yes it does. The _Finalizer._ ”

“Ooh. I shall finalise you in a minute.”

“Stop it.” 

“OK, OK. So, we’re in my bed. The vastness of space is empty and cold, but it's warm in here.”

“Oh, I’ve crawled into your lair, have I?“

“You came to see me to argue about something. Battle strategy.”

“You were undermining my authority. Once we were alone, behind closed doors, the discussion became more passionate. You pushed up against me, and I grabbed hold of you and then we were on each other. Again.”

“It keeps happening. You keep ending up rutting against me like a dirty little animal.”

 _Fuck_. 

“I can't stop. I want you too much. Want _this_ ,” and he slid his hand onto Ben’s cock and circled his fingers around it.

“You are ruled by your desires, General. Base and wanton though they are for a man of your status.”

Oh, _fuck_. 

“My desires are what they are. Why should I deny them, when you are more than willing?” He stroked Ben’s cock firmly, and Ben thrust into his grip. “See? Look at you.”

Ben made a desperate noise.

“I think the aggravation you give me should be repaid in pleasure, don’t you?”

“You want to use me. Then use me.”

Hux wished for once that he could just hop straight on without prior preparation, but the world did not work like that. In any case, he considered, General Hux would enjoy the routine of correct preparation and process. In everything he did. Including sex with his rival and co-commander.

 _Fuck_.

He steadied his breathing. The lubricant was never quite as warm as it could be. He’d have to think of a system or routine that didn’t imply involve warming it in his own hand, and thereby cooling the hand. Sodding thermodynamics. 

His breath came fast and shallow again as he watched Ben unroll a condom onto himself. He bit his lip and poured a little more lubricant into his hand.

“Ready for me?”

Hux sank down on him. Slowly, angling himself to make the most of the warm, intense pleasure he felt as the flare of Ben’s cock head slid over his prostate. He lifted and sank down again, breathing carefully through his nose, lower lip still sucked and bitten.

“Tell me how much you love my cock, General.”

“Oh, Ren. Kylo. I love it. It’s the best I’ve ever had. All your powers, and the best thing about you is your big hot hard _beautiful_ cock.” He rolled his hips and moaned and tipped his head back. Ben’s big hands were on his waist, guiding him.

“Kylo… it’s so…”

His chest and thighs were tense and hot. Too good and too much. His cock, flushed and so hard, straining at itself, bobbed as he squirmed and bounced.

He yelped when it hit, groaned as it passed through him, then sobbed.

Ben gathered him down into his arms. He shook.

“That was incredible.” They were stuck together and he'd have to peel himself off soon, but it didn't matter. “Just incredible. I don’t have the words.”

 

 

***

 

“Where did he come from, then?”

“Oh, you want backstory?”

“Of course I do. Tell me the details?”

“OK. So, uh, he’s a Skywalker as well, by blood.”

“Oh really?”

“Yep. He’s actually Leia and Han’s son.”

“Whoa, no way?”

“Yep. But he’s turned to the Dark Side and left his family.”

Ben went to the mirror and admired himself, tilting his face left and right, up and down. “I suppose I do have something of Han Solo about me.”

Hux sighed.

“So, anyway, because he’s Princess Leia’s son, actual Darth Vader is, erm, kind of his grandfather, by blood.”

“Oh, I like that. If he’s Princess Leia’s son doesn’t that also make him a prince? Of Alderaan?”

“Yes, technically.”

“Fuck, you tell me that _now_? I didn't know I’d been giving you _royal_ dick.”

“Well, next time you can bear that in mind.”

“Only the best for you.” Ben visibly preened.

“It is a bit pathetic though.”

“No it isn’t!”

“No, _me_ pathetic, not _you_ pathetic.” He rolled his eyes. “Stop overreacting.”

“Oh. How exactly _you_ pathetic?”

“Think about it. Not only did I invent a powerful Force user with a needlessly hot body…”

“You love it,”

“Yes, clearly, shut up though; a powerful Force user with a needlessly hot body and needlessly sexy costume and your stupid pretty hair; _and_ he’s a mighty warrior; _and_ he’s technically a prince, _and_ he’s the son of a sexy pirate and a fierce badass princess.”

“So?”

“It’s a bit _overkill_ , isn’t it?”

“Well, yeah, of course it is. But I like it. We can have fun with it.” 

“Good.”

“And in the down time, you have to settle for a City lawyer. If that’s alright.”

“Not exactly _settling_ , is it? You're still quite a catch.”

“Oh, don’t say that, I don't want to be part of that. The way people talk about you like you're a big fucking salmon. Or a prize animal, or a fucking package of goods and services.” Ben hunched his shoulders and for a moment the sulky boy of ten years past was visible again.

“I like you. Actually. I do. My terrible trashy magical space prince.”

 

***

 

 

Hux always felt there was something mildly decadent about eating out for breakfast. This breakfast wrap was really good, though. And the thing about decadence is that you weren’t quite sure whether to fear it or to revel in it.

He munched further, and a connected thought came to him.

“Are we… hipsters?”

“I don’t think so. Not hipsters per se. I think everyone’s a hipster in some way.”

“True”

“You’re still a nerd. But the nerd/hipster overlap is large”

“Intersection.”

“What?”

“Intersection of two sets.”

“Nerd.”

“You’re a nerd too.”

 

***

 

Hux was holding Ben’s hand and gently stroking his fingers.

“Did they fall in love, do you think? The General and Kylo,” Ben asked.

“Yes. Yes they did, eventually. Very much so. I just decided.”

Ben squeezed Hux’s hand. “That’s good. I think they did, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is late as hell.  
> I feel a little conflicted about leaving Lise out – she was supposed to be in the theatre date scene, but she doesn't like Wagner and the scene also works better without any direct dialogue at all.  
> Might write some more little scenes and ficlets and put them on Tumblr.


End file.
